Researchers use ultrasound to improve SSD storage density

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Data storage is a tough industry to be in right now. Consumers are always looking for more capacity at a lower price point, and now we’re fighting with physics to allow high density storage. Instead of piling more platters or more flash chips in a smaller space, researchers at Oregon State University have found a way to harness high-frequency sound waves to allow for higher density magnetic storage.

Dubbed acoustic-assisted magnetic recording (AAMR), this process actually stretches the magnetic medium itself to allow more data to be written in a given area. Previous attempts to influence the magnetic material itself have used heat to temporarily soften and expand a specific area. Unfortunately, that method wasn’t precise enough. With AAMR, ultrasonic sound waves are directed at a small section of the magnetic material. This bends the desired area enough so that more data can fit. When the sound waves stop, the material snaps back to its original shape.

Most importantly, this technique seems to be reliable. Unlike the heating method, this allows for exact manipulation of the material without worry about spreading to a larger area. When it comes to data storage, consistency and dependability are vitally important. The process has to work the same way every time, and even small quirks could mean corrupted data. That’s why this ultrasound method is such a big deal. It’s all about precision.

While this could be used to improve magnetic storage in all of its forms, solid-state drives are the most obvious use case. “This technology should allow us to marry the benefits of solid state electronics with magnetic recording, and create non-volatile memory systems that store more data in less space, using less power,” says OSU’s Albrecht Jander. Combining the low power and immense speed of solid-state drives with a substantial increase in capacity truly makes my mouth water. The only worry at this point is price. Even if it’s cheaper to use AAMR than it is to slap in more NAND chips, solid state will continue to cost more per GB than spinning disks for the foreseeable future.

It’s still early for AAMR, so don’t get too excited yet. It’s unclear how much additional capacity this technique will net drive manufacturers, and the question of price still remains to be answered. Downloadable HD movies are now widely available, and services like Steam allow us to keep our entire game libraries installed for quick access. We’re going to need bigger drives. Even in an all-streaming future, these cloud servers are going to need large speedy drives, and this is a step in that direction. AAMR is good news for consumers, but we’ll be waiting impatiently for this to make it to market in a meaningful way.

The primary benefit SSDs have over magnetic storage is data longevity and drive reliability. With the advent of heating elements in the flash cells, (enabling virtually infinite read/write cycles), an SSD will provide superior speed for data access and storage in a medium generally unaffected by pressure changes or heat, immune to catastrophic failure, and resistant to all but the most extreme physical impacts.

Magnetic storage, on the other hand, practically requires a redundant backup in the form of either RAID or frequent manual backups, as the magnetic surfaces on them will eventually become irreversibly degraded (any techie over the age of 25 has been through at least one failed hard drive), a process accelerated by higher temperatures. With the nature of moving parts also comes the potential for some component to fail, rendering the device and its data irretrievable save for costly methods. Certainly, enterprise-grade parts have very little risk of these failures, but enterprises make such backups regardless of part quality. The S.M.A.R.T. utility helps one make replacements before failure occurs, but it’s not foolproof, and still requires replacement. Modules for the limitless I/O variety of flash memory, on the other hand, won’t need replaced until their size becomes too small for one’s needs.

Theo Jaklitsch

Wait. How does this affect SSDs (even magnetoelectric ones)? From what I read in this article the platter would be warped momentarily to allow more room for data to be written magnetically. How does that translate to higher density SSDs?

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